A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to communication networks, and more particularly, to implementing routing protocols in a wireless network.
B. Description of Related Art
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a leading digital wireless communications standard. A basic GSM network is designed for voice traffic. GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is an enhancement to GSM that allows GSM operators to provide packet data services to their wireless subscribers.
Before GPRS, the radio capacity in a wireless network was conventionally used for calls and data transmission within the GSM network in a rather inefficient manner. For data transmission, the entire channel was occupied and was often insufficiently used. Through GPRS, more than one user may share the same channel, allowing for a more efficient allocation of channel resources. Additionally, a GPRS mobile phone may use several channels for data transfer, thus facilitating greater transfer speeds. Through GPRS, a mobile phone user could simultaneously make a call and receive an email message.
A GPRS network uses a number of protocols, one of which is the GPRS tunnel protocol (GTP). GTP is a protocol designed to tunnel user data and signaling information between nodes in a GPRS network. The GTP protocol includes a call-setup (signaling/control plane) component and a bearer traffic (data plane) component. Conventionally, the control plane component and the data plane component of the GTP protocol are handled by nodes in the GPRS network using a single integrated unit to handle processing for both the call setup and bearer traffic components of the protocol. This technique may lack flexibility and scalability.
Thus, it would be desirable to handle traffic in a GPRS network in a manner that is both flexible and modular from the standpoint of the GPRS network nodes.